


Touch Screens and Oranges

by JeanjacketCarf



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Cisco is grumpy about the holiday, Curtain Fic, F/M, Fluff, Gen, powers head canons, pre-christmas grocery shopping, science talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 16:38:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17063258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanjacketCarf/pseuds/JeanjacketCarf
Summary: Caitlin and Cisco go to pick up groceries for Caitlin's contribution to the STAR Labs Christmas Partythat's about it





	Touch Screens and Oranges

**Author's Note:**

> I'm apologizing in advance for how much time I spent researching how touch screens work and what superconductors are but hey they're scientists this has to be accurate

Cisco leaned back watching the frosty world go by outside the window. He drummed his hands against his thighs like they were bongos. On the radio, a folksy and not very good cover of “Last Christmas” was playing.

“So this is a car, huh?”

Caitlin let out a huff that was kind of a laugh as she turned on her blinker and took a wide left turn. 

“Yeah, a new innovation,” she agreed. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes. Her hair was lit up golden by the weak winter sun. He smiled and reached over to turn up the heat.

“It’s been months since I’ve driven. It’s starting to feel weird.”

Caitlin shrugged.

“I like it. It’s relaxing. And I can’t exactly teleport.”

“Well, you could, you know, make one of those ice slides. Or fly around like a little ice powered rocket.”

That got a genuine laugh out of her which was nice because he was afraid that was a little too close to the Icicle subject. 

“If you hadn’t noticed those are not exactly subtle. Someone actually wrote an open letter to Iris’ blog asking her to ask me to stop doing that. A big chunk fell in the road and nearly hit a car. Besides, it’s a lot of work. I might as well just ride a bike.”

He shrugged and fiddled with the radio. He might have given in to Thanksgiving to spend the night with his friends but no way was he buying into this month-long Christmas commercialism.

“Well, you wouldn’t be cold.”

“I live 12 miles away. It would take me an hour. And I was listening to that,” she snapped.

He threw up his hands and grinned at her. 

“I’m joking! I like your car. And your boring music.”

She rolled her eyes even though there was a smile tugging at her lips. She pulled into the parking lot for the grocery store but bypassed the front and rolled up to the little drive through atm off to the side. 

She rolled down her window and Cisco hissed as the cold air gushed in. He rolled down the sleeves of his over shirt.

“Hey, warn a guy!” 

“Did you bring a coat? You know we have to get out of the car, right?” Caitlin leaned out the car window to tap at the screen. 

“Yeah, yeah.” He reached back to grab his coat off the back seats where he’d chucked it getting in. 

Caitlin tapped at the screen a few times, practically slapping it before dropping back into her seat with a huff.

“What’s wrong?” Cisco asked because clearly, something was.

“Oh, nothing.” Caitlin shook her head. “The damn thing’s heat sensitive.”

“Even capacitive touch screens don’t run on heat, they run on electric currents. That’s why you can use a stylus if it has the right tip.”

She glared. 

“Well, it’s not working.”

“Don’t worry. I got it.” He popped open the passenger side door and walked around to her side, peering down at the atm. 

He tapped the screen and his eyebrows jumped up.

“Oh, it really is capacitive. Who’s paying for this fancy schmancy atm?”

“You thought I was making it up?”

“Well, they’re usually resistive,” he mumbled taking her debit card wordlessly. “Those suckers you just have to hit hard.” He put in her PIN number just as another car pulled up behind them.

“You know my pin?” Caitlin asked. He looked up surprised. She peered at him curiously. He started to get hot around the ears.

“Uh, I may have hacked your bank information a few times. Since you keep disappearing. You really should change it more often.”

Caitlin just rolled her eyes. 

“Can you get fifty bucks out for me?”

The car behind them honked and the guy inside waved his hands around angrily. 

“Oh come on, man! Wait a second!” Cisco was only slightly tempted to flip the guy’s car but he was saved by Caitlin’s money printing out. 

He rolled over the hood of the car to his door and jumped in, slamming the door.

“Punch it!”

Caitlin did just that. Her white knuckles grip on steering wheel suggesting that she was trying very hard to keep Frost from giving the man a piece of her mind. 

They pulled up in front of the grocery store and got out. Caitlin pulled a long shopping list out of her purse. 

“Thanks for coming with me.”

Cisco shrugged.

“I didn’t have anything else to do.”

As they walked across the parking lot he reached out and took Caitlin’s hand. It was like holding an ice cube in his palm. 

“Frank! You’re cold!”

Caitlin eyed him. “Didn’t you know? I have ice powers.”

“I meant it’s not usually this cold.”

She shrugged, slipping her hand out of his. It was funny she seemed so normal most of the time but then he would remember the winter while they’d been working on the particle accelerator and she had come to work every day bundled up like she was on going to be climbing Mount Everest. Now even though she wore a winter coat it was only halfway zipped up, her head bare and her hands hanging loosely at her sides, not hunched against the chill in the air like everybody else. Her breath didn’t even steam. 

“It’s worse in the winter when there’s less ambient heat to absorb.”

“Even when you’re not Frost?”

“Near absolute zero didn’t have much of an effect even without her.”

They passed through the automatic doors of the store and Cisco let out a sigh of relief at the heat. 

Caitlin peered down at her list, mouthing the words as she checked each item. He dug out his phone and took a picture, getting her at the worst possible moment with her mouth hanging open.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing.” He tucked his phone back in his back pocket. “I’m just wondering if you don’t give off a normal electrical charge.”

“Ah, that’s very giggle-worthy.” Caitlin said moving over to the fruit section. 

Cisco followed behind her, unzipping his coat.

“Well, you gotta think about it. I can feel speedsters coming mostly by their electrical charge. It’s like my vibe powers pick it up.”

Caitlin shot him a warning look and he swallowed, checking around before continuing in a quieter voice. 

“But I don’t get that with you. And since cold and speed are opposites…”

“Aren’t cold temperatures the key to superconductors though?” Caitlin turned over an orange and examined it like a patient under her care.

“True but that’s only with certain materials at certain temperatures. You’re mainly dealing with ice since there’s so much moisture in the air and you’re a heat sink which sort of defies the laws of physics anyway.”

She put the orange down and moved on to another one. 

“Do you think I’m like a black hole and maybe somewhere out there there’s a metaphysical white hole spitting out all the heat I suck up?”

Cisco’s face lit up and he had to keep himself jumping up and down in the middle of the store.

“That’s- Uh, no I never thought of that. But that would be so dope! You’d be like opposite doppelgängers and if you crossed the streams the world would explode!”

Caitlin laughed.

“Don’t get so excited about blowing up the world. It’s our job to stop that, remember?”

A little old lady pushed past them with her cart, glancing over at them with an incredulous look. Cisco smiled brightly at her. He wasn’t sure if either he or Caitlin had ever talked about how secret their identities as Killer Frost and Vibe really were and now Vibe was dead so he wasn’t too afraid of a little casual conversation being overheard. Who would even know who they were?

“Hey, pass me the list,” he made grabby hands at Caitlin. “We can split it up and it’ll go faster.”

Rolling her eyes she passed it over to him. She pulled out a plastic bag and started filling it with oranges.

Cisco whistled.

“Half of this is liquor!”

“I’m making some cocktails and I don’t normally keep Triple Sec at home. And the rum’s for the cake.”

“Okay sure. But why are you getting all those oranges? Are they your Christmas presents?”

Caitlin turned red. She shrugged.

“Well, kind of. I thought it would be funny.”

“To make everyone think you only got them fruit?”

Caitlin grabbed a basket and moved further into the store, practically speed walking away from him.

“Hey, hey! I’m sorry. It’s funny, it really is,” Cisco said following behind her, trying to at least sound sincere.

Caitlin came to a stop next to the baking supplies and he bumped into her back.

“What?” She looked up surprised. “No, I don’t care. I know it’s stupid but it’s a Little Woman reference.”

“No, one is going to get that.”

Caitlin hummed as she pulled a bag of flour off the shelf.

“Iris will and she will appreciate it.”

Cisco smiled, cheekily.

“Do you wanna make a bet on that?”

“Fine, next dinner’s on the loser.”

“Deal!” Cisco shook her hand. “Okay, I’ll go find your booze.”

He hurried off with the list in his hand, knowing that Caitlin had definitely already memorized it.

They met back up at check out and lugged their haul back to Caitlin’s car across the parking lot. Caitlin forgot even to zip up her coat and they caught a few odd looks from the other shivering customers rushing to stock up for the holiday. They loaded it all into the trunk and got in the car in companionable silence. One thing Cisco had always liked about spending time with Caitlin was they could talk for hours but sometimes they didn’t need to talk at all.

His mind turned over Caitlin’s problem with atm from earlier and if she’d been having it with the touch screens at STAR Labs and at home too. If she wasn’t ever cold, he probably couldn’t persuade her to wear gloves designed for touch screens but maybe he could cook something else up for her.

As they merged into traffic on the main byway, Caitlin glanced over to him with a smile.

“Hey, thanks for coming with me. It always makes boring trips a lot less dull.”

Cisco shrugged even though inside he was preening. Caitlin wasn’t always that communicative about her feelings and even though he could tell most of the time, he liked to hear it.

“Anytime. It’s what we do.”


End file.
